Speaker, I am both humbled and honoured to rise today to stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. We must never forget sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles and children tragically lost to the violence and abuse in residential schools and the intergenerational trauma of the colonial legacy, past and present, that inflicts harms on Indigenous peoples.

We have an obligation to confront the truth—the truth that the member from Kiiwetinoong just shared with us—no matter how painful that truth is, as the first step to healing. We must confront the truths of colonialism, systemic racism, broken treaties and residential schools.

We must also reflect on the strength, the courage and the resiliency of Indigenous peoples and nations who have fought so hard and worked so hard to defend their people, land, language, culture and communities.

Speaker, I ask all of us to take a moment to reflect on the wisdom of the Seven Grandfather Teachings carved in this House; to reflect on what the land alliance chiefs and marchers said yesterday about consultation and consent, about treaty rights, poverty, housing and clean water; to reflect on what Regional Chief Hare said about respect—and I emphasize respect—during the raising of the Survivors’ Flag on Tuesday here at Queen’s Park.

We all have a duty to confront the truth and commit to the hard work of building respectful relationships as we walk along the long journey to reconciliation.

May we all walk together on that path to truth and reconciliation with a commitment to respect and healing. Meegwetch.

Applause.

My question is for the Premier.

Your $8.3-billion greenbelt scandal has outraged Ontarians and shattered trust in your government. People have questions about the contents of brown envelopes, good luck massages at Vegas hotels, and the mysterious Mr. X; about how your cabinet handed over $8.3 billion in windfall profits to wealthy elites; about the flawed processes that gave insider access to Conservative-connected speculators.

Speaker, the best way to get honest answers for the people of Ontario and recommendations to prevent a scandal like this from ever happening again is an independent public inquiry. I want to give the Premier an opportunity today to back up his greenbelt apology and say whether he will say yes to an independent public inquiry.

People in this province want to know why the government was more focused on land grabs for wealthy, well-connected insiders—$8.3 billion in windfall profits—instead of building homes that ordinary people can afford in the communities they want to live in.

I’ve put forward two bills that would make it legal to build multiplexes, make it easier to build missing middle housing. I’ve put forward proposals to get speculation out of the housing market. I’ve put forward proposals to build deeply affordable, non-profit, co-op housing in this province. But instead of having a government focused on that, they’re focused on benefiting wealthy and connected elites.

So will the Premier—

It’s an honour to rise today and speak in favour of Bill 117, the Skilled Trades Week Act, to declare the first week of November as Skilled Trades Week. I’d like to thank the member from Scarborough Centre for bringing this bill forward.

I want to take a moment to talk to young people because two of the biggest challenges we face in Ontario right now are directly related to getting more people in the trades: the housing crisis and the climate crisis. We know that we need to build at least 1.5 million homes across this province over the next decade, and it is going to take a lot of workers to build those homes. As a matter of fact, Speaker, we already have a shortage of workers in the construction trades right now, so we need to encourage more young people to go into the trades. We need to ensure that we get rid of the stigma associated with the trades. We need to ensure that we make investments in helping make it easier for people to enter the trades. And we also need to make sure that we make the trades a welcoming place for women, Black, Indigenous and people of colour. We’ve all too often heard about stories and incidents of sexual harassment, or sexual violence, even, in the trades. We’ve heard, especially on construction sites, some of the disturbing stories about racism that people experience. And so I’m hoping, as we all come together to promote the trades, that we ensure that we promote them in ways that are welcoming for everybody in our communities, and we have enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure all individuals in our communities can succeed in the trades.

I want to take a moment to talk about what it’s going to take to address the climate crisis. I want to say to so many young people—and I speak to so many young people who have climate anxiety, are worried about the future, especially after the kind of summer we had here in Ontario. We had toxic skies due to wildfires. We see increasing floods and other extreme weather events. One of the ways that you can channel that anxiety in a productive way is to get involved in the trades, because if we have any hope of reducing climate pollution in Ontario to meet our climate obligations, we’re going to have to retrofit 40% of our homes by 2030 and 100% of our homes by 2040. Imagine all the houses in Ontario needing better insulation, better sealing, new windows, new doors, new HVAC systems. Imagine the number of carpenters, drywallers, insulation, HVAC operators, electricians, plumbers, roofers that it’s going to take to do a retrofit program of that scale.

And then I think of what else it’s going to take to electrify our transportation system. We’ve all talked about having a mining-to-manufacturing EV system. We’ve talked about the need to double electricity output, and the lowest-cost way to do that is through renewables. That’s why global investors were pouring $1.1 trillion last year alone into the climate economy. We’re on track for them to invest $1.8 trillion this year alone, most of that going into renewable energy. That’s going to take electricians. That’s going to take mechanics. It’s going to take installers. It’s going to take a huge increase in the number of people going into the trades in order to electrify our transportation systems, especially if we’re going to meet our goal of having a fully electrified transportation system by 2035. It’s going to take a huge number of tradespeople. That’s exactly why I’ve been promoting policies like free tuition for 60,000 students going to college, guaranteeing them an apprenticeship, as an affordable pathway into the trades. That’s why we need, as members of all parties have talked about, funding for union training centres in the trades.

Speaker, I want to close by also saying that it’s why we need to invest more in schools. I meet with schools in my riding all the time and I talk about the need to increase the number of students going into the trades. Some of the feedback I get is, “We would love to have more students in the trades, but our woodshop classes are already overcrowded; our mechanical shop classes are already overcrowded.” We’re going to need more investment in the infrastructure in our schools to facilitate more people in the trades.